Slaughterfest 2012 - NEW Final Final Version is up

GRB - for SF2011 we used slumped. If the texture was a single patch texture, the patch was saved. If the texture was a multi-patch texture, you can use print screen, paste into paint and crop, then save.

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I was sleepy and sick (and still am, bah) so I played like an ass. I usually don't post up how I get owned, but hey, it's for a higher purpose. Do I see some concealed sunder map 10 in the background? ;)

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I intended to have the map be in two parts, starting with a circumvoluted path circling around the castle, with small firefights, then the castle itself with hordes of monsters and gigantic open spaces. When I realised how big the castle already was, I started being worried about performance issues ; gameplay concerns popped up as well it's hard to make reasonably tough fights in very open areas that don't result in sudden deaths after a few missteps, and I could see multiple deaths right after picking up the BFG being a lot more tedious if they occured after 20 minutes of playing already.

That is to say, I scrapped this first part idea and salvaged what I could out of it to have some eyecandy in the background. So, not really a Sunder Map10 influence this time, at least not consciously. :)

Perhaps the start ends up too brutal this way. What I didn't like in particular is the area before the bridge - I intended to have it as a last resort fallback area, but never even tried it, and as evidenced in your FDA the only "cover" there is is the bridge itself, and without any ammo or health it's more of a death sentence than anything else. I added some brick walls, shells and medikits around to hopefully make this a little better, although obviously the player should still press a bit forward for more juicy ammo.

So the slime doesn't hurt. Oops. Damaging sectors is one of these things I like to put off for as long as possible, as it's all too easy to set something to damage when it shouldn't if you modify the architecture, but as a result I end up forgetting about it half of the time...

Those three stuck barons were worth a good laugh, certainly puts to light the "quality" playtesting I've done on this before uploading. :)

I've changed a few more things here and there, although overall there's been no big cut into the hordes, yet. I intend this to be especially punishing to players rushing through. Still possible hopefully, but I definitely want zipping through the hordes to remain somewhat challenging even with foreknowledge, whereas hanging back and killing everything before proceeding to the next part should ideally be reliable with some practice.

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After seeing a FDA by dannebubinga with some of the same issues and sore spots as in j4rio's, I made a few small changes to the first fight that should make it potentially much easier on people if they want it to be so (changed walkover lines to switches for more control on what happens and when, added a couple of soulspheres, some ammo and some cover).

I was a bit concerned it ended up making that fight too easy, and there's lower difficulties anyway ; but on the other end, my goal isn't to make hard maps, and a player looking for maximum speed will still want to flip everything ASAP and experience the fight "as intended".

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:( failed max attempt of slaughtenstein, died after 40 mins, why do i post it?, because i am sure phml will watch it and find something wrong, then fix it and make the demo desync, but idc if it's a failed max.

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So I screwed up the secret switches and didn't account for the possibility the player might come from above to the revenant/chaingunner fight. Oops. Thanks for the demo, and as you guessed, new version on the way. ;)

Edit: Slaughtenstein 09/02. Hopefully alright. I went for some quick test runs to check in a few different ways if the changes worked, nothing beyond that.

Weird thing about nodes: I had switched back to ZDoom normal nodes in DB2 and it built and compressed nodes just as if I used extended nodes. I guess it does that automatically beyond a certain sidedef threshold? Looks like I worried about using extended nodes for nothing, heh.

If you see any possible glides, unescapable pits or switches presses through unusual means in my maps, it's always a mapping mistake rather than something intended.

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Slaughtenstein UV-Speed in 4:24
I think a mapping mistake makes this route possible, but demo also shows how easy is speed inside part (I did it on my 1st try)

Ha, nice catch. The teleporter was supposed to be accessible right from the start (this is how I intended for players who couldn't/didn't want to deal with the first two cybies to frag them before I added the switches), but somehow it never dawned on me this could be used beyond that. Doh...

Being easy to speed through doesn't concern me, but the early teleport does potentially turn every fight into "let's hang out on the ramparts and not throw a punch", and the infighting possibilities would make this the fastest and the safest option, so I'll have to change that. Thanks! This map would have been such a broken mess without your help.

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Ammo was definitely a perceived problem, the amount as much as the placement. At certain spots I had enough or even too much and picked up nothing, during other times I had to run halfway through the map to get more ammo. Health, to an extent, was a bit of the same thing.

The archvile extravaganza is as much to blame as anything else for these issues. Without foreknowledge, it's hard to react appropriately when you're being jumped by any group of mid-tier monsters plus three or more archviles, unless you've got a clear line of sight on everything.

Another problem, in my opinion, is I felt I was fighting against the environment rather than against monsters most of the time. The rail tracks, the hills around the rocket launcher and the MARBFACE pillars on the heightened platform after the BFG are some offenders that spring to mind.

While I'm complaining, I did not like the jump from sector 102 to sector 93 (crates). With a 24 pixels height difference and a 48 pixels length, it's fairly frustrating.

Admittedly, these issues wouldn't be as pronounced on lower difficulties or with further playthroughs.